Editor’s Note: Very emotional day yesterday, shared with a bunch of shipmates who also remember. The news coverage this morning, like the eye of a storm, has wobbled back to the usual political sniping. We had two really bad things happen from the Skies over the past two week, but this is not the catastrophe we were hearing about 24 x &. Of course, I don’t have to return to a flooded house or an overturned yacht. Of course, it is better to see it than not to be able to. Marlow, a long-time resident of Key West, has an appreciation on what happened.

– Vic

Key West: Where the Sidewalk Ends

Pre-Irma Duval Street Key West

Author’s note: Key West has no phone service, power, water or flushing toilets today, even though it avoided a catastrophic blow from Irma. Not that the locals mind. By Sunday afternoon, as Irma’s winds continued to pound the island, two bars on Duval Street had already reopened. They were packed.

Meanwhile in other news, the Department of Defense announced Monday that all 10,000 people who chose to stay in the Keys during Irma might have to be evacuated until basic services come back. There are tens of thouands of Keys residents on the mianland who are chomping at the bit to go back to their island homes to see what is left and begin their island lives once again.

Key West is the place where the sidewalk ends
It is far beyond where roads begin
Its beach sand is soft and beige
There the sun is hot and bright
There Irma ground the trees bare
Leaving no shade to cool us, only the wind

Should we leave this waterless place where the winds blew everything away
Stark streets full of people’s stuff and debris
Past the gardens where our flowers grew
Shall we walk about slow
And maybe look for signs of where we should go
In this place where the sidewalk ends

Yes, Key West life is treasured and slow
But there’re no arrows that point where to go
Irma wiped clean our chalked path
But two bars just opened, they’re packed
In this place where the sidewalk ends

Copyright 2017 My Isle Seat
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